


What Would Daenerys Targaryen Do?

by blueteak



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-02
Updated: 2012-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-04 17:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei considers what the words "queen" and "mother" mean to different people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Would Daenerys Targaryen Do?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/gifts).



A Lannister uncle whose name she could not now remember teased her when she was six, said that when she was queen she could have as many lovely dresses as she wanted and Myrish carpets as far as the eye could see. She had fought back her initial response and grinned while telling him that she would rather have heads as decorations. He could keep the dresses and the carpets. Instead of laughing and clapping her on the shoulder as he would have with Jaime, not that he would have said anything remotely similar to him, his answering grin had frozen and she had suddenly started receiving many more lectures on womanhood from her septa. 

Years later, clad in her finest emerald gown and pregnant with Jaime’s child, she had seen that same uncle’s head affixed to a spike at a castle that had rebelled against Robert and taken as many lion pelts as possible in the bargain. Robert had not wanted her to see the head, had placed a meaty, grimy hand on her belly and said that it would be best for her, for the child, not to be near it. She had taken it anyway, feigning tears, and said that she should be with her uncle before he was taken to their family crypt. Robert never suspected that the skull in Cersei’s chamber was less a prolonged farewell to a loved one and more of a…decoration.

And yet her secret statement did not fully satisfy her. It was more petulant rather than a symbol of power. While she had been responsible for the skull being placed in a position of prominence in her chambers, she had not been the cause of her uncle’s laughing face being stripped down to the bone. Her only real power, according to many, rested in her womb, though even there it was said that it was the man’s seed, not any part of the woman, that determined whether the babe would be a boy or girl. And if it was a boy, her power would stem from him. There would be the secret of his true parentage, of course, but there was no value in this secret either. Unlike Varys’, the only secrets she knew were her own, and were either inconsequential or would work to bring about her ruin.

She had a boy. Then a girl. Then another boy. And a web of spies and lovers. And then Robert died. Now that was a skull she could have claimed as her own, if she had dared. Ned Stark died. The responsibility for that skull rested with her, though she was powerless to keep it affixed to Stark’s shoulders once Joffrey had ordered it taken. 

Joffrey died gasping, clawing at his throat and looking at her. There was nothing she could do to help him. What she could do, what she did do, was seek to make it impossible for Tyrion to escape. She was given many heads with which to decorate the walls. None of them were quite right. Tyrion was still loose. Deep down she knew that the prophecy would hold true. The valonqar would take everything. Everything. 

Everything that the Faith Militant and Iron Bank did not, that is. While she was being held prisoner, silenced and stripped of all markers of royalty--including the beautiful clothes foretold by her long-dead uncle—she began to wonder what she could have done differently. 

Jaime. Jaime definitely should have been handled differently, though she was not sure exactly when things should have changed. After Tommen but before Robert’s death? After their first time but before Jaime joined the King’s Guard? Before Jaime’s proposal or after?

Jaime had wanted them to be more Targaryen than Lannister. She knew it was whispered that her part of the family was more Targaryen than Lannister anyway. And that was decidedly no great thing. Though given the reports she had heard of Daenerys Targaryen, emulating Targaryens in at least some ways might have been beneficial.

Daenerys had gone from having nothing but a bullying brother and a name to inspiring the loyalty of the khalasar. Daenerys had liberated slaves and razed cities while raising dragons. When the people called Daenerys a mother, they meant something very different than they did when they had saddled Cersei with the same label. In Cersei’s case, when it wasn’t being used as an excuse to infantilize her—“you shouldn’t see/eat/hear/do this, in your condition”—it was used as a means to keep her in check, remind her that she occupied her position only because a king had enjoyed her at least enough to get a son by her. 

Her father, her…valonqar, her uncle…all of them had thought her sons had need of a man’s advice to be a good ruler rather than input from her. Daenerys did not need to argue about whether she should be allowed to have a voice on a council. She ruled. And when the word “mother” was used in connection with her it was shouted in acclamation, not uttered as part of an oath when people passed the memorial to Joffrey. Daenery’s motherhood was associated with controlled fire, with power. Cersei’s was linked with failure. Not even Jaime would disagree.

Jaime…if she had not loved Jaime, perhaps she could have gone to a place where “queen” did not mean a woman who birthed sons and could afford exquisite decorations. Without Jaime, Robert, Tywin, Joffrey, Tommen she could have taken nothing but her name and allied herself with…the Greyjoys? They were somewhat more tolerant of female strength, as the case of Asha Greyjoy demonstrated. But they had not allowed her to become a queen with no king. And while Cersei was more than happy to place heads on spikes, she had not been trained to take them herself and win acclaim in battle as Asha had. She could have aligned herself with the Dothraki, yes, but they would have had no reason to cross the sea for her. She could not have claimed the need to reclaim a throne stolen by Robert Baratheon.

As she sat awaiting judgment, she realized that she had never had a cause that would inspire men to follow her. Her wish for power and respect, to be seen as a true child of Tywin’s, was hardly anything that would make men march. Her true motivations would need to remain secret. Even to herself. Only her rival queens could understand, and they wanted her head as well as her Myrish carpets and dresses.


End file.
